This invention relates to a poultry cage system, and more particularly to a unique way of discharging poultry from cages for transportation.
In accordance with the prior art, poultry such as chickens are generally placed shortly after birth into growing cages where they are raised for a specific length of time, generally a specific number of weeks. After such time period has lapsed, they are removed from these cages for slaughter (in the case of fryers) or to special poultry houses (for layers). The particular operation of removing the poultry from their initial cages is costly and time consuming. It involves an excessive amount of labor since confined poultry tend to be nervous when an attempt to physically remove them from their cages is undertaken. Also, when poultry are raised in large numbers, they are generally housed in large complex structures comprising many many rows of cages arranged in tiers. Thus, it is extremely inconvenient for an attendant to gain immediate access to all the individual cages for removal of the poultry therefrom. While attempts have been made to urge the poultry from their cages through proper openings onto access ways which lead toward a collection point, such attempts have been unsuccessful. The poultry resist moving toward a discharge end without positive physical manipulation.
In addition to the foregoing disadvantages, it has been difficult in accordance with the prior art to simply urge the poultry to leave the cages they are confined within. Part of this difficulty is the basic nature of the poultry which as pointed out above tends toward that of excitability which results in the poultry tending to want to stay within the cage it is confined within. The configuration of prior art cages however have contributed to this difficulty by the presence of an access opening in one of the partitions of the cages with a remaining partition portion on the same side. In these cases, the poultry required to be driven through a defined opening in one side of the cage tend to seek an avenue toward the position along that panel which remains and hence blocks its passage from the cage. Thus, there is a need in this art for an improved poultry cage construction.